La Buona terra nell’editoria italiana : Meduse e Pavoni da Oscar

Published in the United States in 1931, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck became an instant success, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the novel in 1932, and soon gained an international reputation as best- and long-seller. By the beginning of the same decade, the Italian publisher Mondadori was innovating its catalogue by introducing a new collection – “La Medusa” – devoted to foreign contemporary authors, and thus challenging Fascist autarchical censorship. Translated into Italian by the anti-fascist Gobettian intellectual Andrea Damiano as La buona terra, Buck’s Chinese saga – along with the rest of her prolific output – was to remain a constant and commercially profitable presence in Mondadori catalogue. This essay looks at the editorial history of Buck’s Italian translations by using the archival findings of The Arnoldo e Alberto Mondadori Foundation